Posted on 09/12/2008 11:29:13 PM PDT by NautiNurse
The eyewall of Hurricane Ike crossed Galveston Island in the early hours of Saturday morning. Reports indicate as many as 20,000 residents of Galveston Island chose not to evacuate as storm surge engulfed the island. The Freeport Chief of Police reported as many as 2000 residents did not evacuate as flood waters swamped coastal communities. There are widespread reports of power outages and coastal flooding throughout the Texas/Louisiana region. The U.S. Coast Guard received hundreds of calls Friday afternoon to rescue people stranded by flood waters along the barrier islands and Galveston Bay communities.
Multiple fires broke out in the Greater Houston area fueled by strong winds. Fire fighting efforts were hampered by flood waters. Brennan's Restaurant, a landmark in Houston, burned to the ground. A 584-foot freighter crippled in the Gulf of Mexico and its crew of 22 survived the storm after The U.S. Coast Guard was forced to abort rescue efforts Friday afternoon due to foul weather
Gulf Coast wholesale gasoline prices jumped to nearly $5 a gallon over fears that water and wind damage could keep the facilities closed for days or longer. Oil companies had shut down 97.5 percent of production in the Gulf of Mexico by Friday morning and were battening down refineries and petrochemical plants in an area that accounts for one-fifth of U.S. refining capacity.
Exxon Mobil reported evacuating workers from its Gulf Coast offshore platforms and onshore facilities in the anticipated path of Ike, shutting down daily production of about 36,000 barrels of oil and 270 million cubic feet of gas..
Public Advisory Updated every 3 hours
Discussion Updated every 6 hours
Buoy data: Western Gulf of Mexico
Houston/Galveston Long Range Radar
Corpus Christi Long Range Radar
Brownsville Long Range Radar
Lake Charles Long Range Radar
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Additional Resources:
Navy Tropical Cyclone
Storm Pulse Very cool site
KHOU Houston
ABC 13 News Houston
FOX News Houston
KPLC Lake Charles
KFDM 6 Beaumont/Port Arthur
KKBMT 12 Beaumont
KRIS-TV Corpus Christi
KZTV Corpus Christi
Brazoria County Emergency Management
Galveston County Emergency Management
Chambers Country Emergency Management
Liberty County Emergency Management
| Category | Wind Speed | Barometric Pressure | Storm Surge | Damage Potential |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tropical Depression |
< 39 mph < 34 kts |
Minimal | ||
| Tropical Storm |
39 - 73 mph 34 - 63 kts |
Minimal | ||
| Hurricane 1 (Weak) |
74 - 95 mph 64 - 82 kts |
28.94" or more 980.02 mb or more |
4.0' - 5.0' 1.2 m - 1.5 m |
Minimal damage to vegetation |
| Hurricane 2 (Moderate) |
96 - 110 mph 83 - 95 kts |
28.50" - 28.93" 965.12 mb - 979.68 mb |
6.0' - 8.0' 1.8 m - 2.4 m |
Moderate damage to houses |
| Hurricane 3 (Strong) |
111 - 130 mph 96 - 112 kts |
27.91" - 28.49" 945.14 mb - 964.78 mb |
9.0' - 12.0' 2.7 m - 3.7 m |
Extensive damage to small buildings |
| Hurricane 4 (Very strong) |
131 - 155 mph 113 - 135 kts |
27.17" - 27.90" 920.08 mb - 944.80 mb |
13.0' - 18.0' 3.9 m - 5.5 m |
Extreme structural damage |
| Hurricane 5 (Devastating) |
Greater than 155 mph Greater than 135 kts |
Less than 27.17" Less than 920.08 mb |
Greater than 18.0' Greater than 5.5m |
Catastrophic building failures possible |
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Previous Threads:
Hurricane Ike Live Thread III
Hurricane Ike Live Thread II
Hurricane Ike Live Thread I
TS Hanna, Hurricane Ike & TS Josephine [Other than that, the tropics are calm]
Tropical Storms Hanna, Ike and Josephine, TD Gustav (Other than that, the tropics are calm)
I have to disagree with your assessment; Ike was the news last night, nothing else had a chance, right up until landfall it meandered along as a Cat 2 with 105mph winds until just before the first surge approached and then shot up to 110mph which suddenly took it from a weak 2 to a strong 2; the wreck got 30-60 seconds, Ike got almost nonstop dire predictions and, as I speak the hype goes on.
Right now they are reporting on T.V. that they have mounted the biggest search-and-rescue mission in history to find survivors among the estimated 20,000 who refused to leave under the evacuation order; are they looking for breathing bodies or cold ones?
Nobody has been reported missing at this time that I have been able to determine.
We’ve got to stop the hype.
Tell that to the dead
All I remember about Katrina were all the stories about how many dead people there were in the Superdome.
Concerning the 1,200+ 911 calls reported by the AP it seems that during emergency decaration periods a new telephony system has been in place there since 2006 so that any call to a government agency would be automatically routed through and treated as an emergency through the 911 network:
“Hurricane-Prone Galveston County, Texas Uses Avaya IP Call Center Network to Respond to Critical 911 Calls
Emergency Communication District links eight public safety organizations in a seamless, survivable network that can weather extraordinary conditions; Avaya public safety solutions to be featured at two leading industry events
For Immediate Release: 02-Aug-2006
BASKING RIDGE, N.J. – When Hurricane Katrina roared inland last year across the Gulf Coast, officials in Galveston County, Texas feared that government buildings housing local emergency response teams would be unable to survive the storm.
“For the first time we actually had to abandon some of our public safety sites out of a concern for our employees,” said Bobby Wright, executive director, Galveston County Emergency Communications District.
To prepare the county’s emergency response infrastructure to weather such extraordinary conditions in the future, the District is implementing a new survivable IP telephony solution from Avaya (NYSE:AV), a leading global provider of business communications software, systems and services.
A centralized Avaya communications network will replace eight standalone systems and link 911 call centers countywide – including those operated by the Galveston County Sheriff’s Department and the city police departments in Galveston, Texas City, La Marque, Hitchcock, Santa Fe, Dickinson and Kemah. Four centers have been added to the network to date, with the remaining sites expected to be up in early August.”
They should have listened to Dr. Frank or at least referenced him along with the NWS. The movement to the east saved Galvestion and Houston from the full storm surge. The lack of the additional 8 - 10’ surge made a huge difference.
I’m interested in the truth, not B.S.
I lost power at 3AM and power was back on at 4:20PM, in Katy, TX, far west Houston. There are huge crews working to bring infrastructure back up. Hopefully, La Porte is not far behind. I wish you the best...
I’ve found the lack of information on deaths from the hurricane itself rather odd. It makes me suspicious.
The big problem is those MIA. Yeah, they can count those bodies that they find, but those who can’t be located? There’s no knowing.
This will most likely still go down as a property loss with hopefully minimal life loss. The difference between this one and Katrina to some extent is that the water will recede in a couple of days and you’ll quickly know what you have. That wasn’t the case in Katrina nor would have been the case in the Port Arthur area had a large storm surge breeched the levee system there. Like NO once the water was in the only way out would be by pumps.
From High Island west to the Ferry at Galveston is a long penisular with a mile or so wide habitable space. Lots of beach cabins, some very expensive up on piers and associated small commercial establishments. To the north of the beach road would be marsh and mostly cattle grazing, etc.
Our local weather man said at High Island the storm surge was 14.25’. Thus the entire penisular westward should have been totally over topped with surge water. Most likely many structures will have been lost.
Well, one of the big differences from Katrina (aside from the fact that it’s Texans that got hit and therefore we’ll be fixing our problems quickly instead of whining for two years that nobody has fixed them for us) is that unlike New Orleans, Houston and Galveston are built above sea level and aren’t bowls. The water is already draining out of the flooded areas.
Centerpoint Energy has deployed *600-700* crews in a frantic rush to get power back on, more are coming from other states - even so, it may take weeks to repower the area.
The media is always doing the last story and they’ll be doing Katrina for a long time to the exclusion of more serious stories, even though the storm they’re covering will bear no resemblance to that one.
Dr. Frank knows his stuff and Thursday he was saying more east. He could easily analyze the data and see that. He even commented about the storm surge and thought NHC were off. I don’t know about NHC these days.
Ike deserved the dire predictions. It was a bad storm and people needed to get out of its way. If they hadn’t the death toll would certainly be higher than it is so far.
The fact that it didn’t hit as hard as expected is a blessing and due to the huge number of people praying for others safety.
I would appreciate it if we all could get back to discussing the hurricane and its effects and stop attacking each other.
Thank you for your support.
I know many posts will be made after this one before having seen it, so I forgive that. Everyone has gotten tensed by the situation.
Again, thanks.
(Attacking the govt and agencies is always acceptable)
/
At least one person is known to have washed away and is missing.
“The search is on for a 19-year-old man swept out to sea Friday while walking on a jetty near Corpus Christi. The U.S. Coast Guard says Michael Moxley was with three other people on North Padre Island when a 6- to 8-foot wave hit the jetty and knocked him off his feet. The wave was part of the storm surge caused by Hurricane Ike...”
Recently rescued people in Texas City have reported that several people that stayed had had to evacuate to the roof of their house when the waters rose; the waters continued to rise and many were washed away.
And, the media.
If the sharks don't get them first.
I feel sick...
I was watching the coverage on the networks last night, and every time they saw a "blueish flash" they thought mean a transformer had blown.
More likely, it was a power line in contact with a tree, or an adjacent power line.
You can fix that in a by replacing a fuse. A transformer takes a while to replace.
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